Law Library Mission and Vision Statements

The Barry Law Library educates, enlightens, and empowers students, scholars, and citizens.

We provide access to legal information and support scholarship with innovative instruction, methods, and resources.

We enhance legal knowledge by cultivating well-rounded, practical research skills in the attorneys of today and tomorrow.

Barry University School of Law Mission Statement

Barry University Dwayne O. Andreas School of Law is the only Dominican Law School in the United States and the first American Law School to be part of a university founded by women religious. The School of Law endeavors to offer a quality legal education in a caring environment with a religious dimension so that study and reflection lead to informed action and a commitment to social justice leads to collaborative service. The School of Law promotes the highest standards of ethics and competence in the practice of law and other pursuits. The School of Law seeks to challenge students to embrace intellectual, personal, ethical, spiritual, ecological, and social responsibilities in an atmosphere of academic freedom. The program strives to equip its graduates to apply the knowledge, values, and skills they acquire to enhance personal growth, the legal profession, the judicial system, society, and the Earth community. Within its Catholic Dominican tradition, the School of Law values matters of faith through religious freedom. The School of Law seeks to enhance diversity in our community and the profession and endorses recruitment and retention of members of underrepresented groups, particularly racial and ethnic minorities, in order to create a more diverse faculty, staff, and student body.

Amended by the faculty of the School of Law on Aug. 16, 2013.

Barry University Mission Statement and Core Commitments

Mission Statement

Barry University is a Catholic institution of higher education founded in 1940 by the Adrian Dominican Sisters. Grounded in the liberal arts tradition, Barry University is a scholarly community committed to the highest academic standards in undergraduate, graduate and professional education.

In the Catholic intellectual tradition, integration of study, reflection and action inform the intellectual life. Faithful to this tradition, a Barry education and university experience foster individual and communal transformation where learning leads to knowledge and truth, reflection leads to informed action, and a commitment to social justice leads to collaborative service.

Through worship and ritual, we celebrate our religious identity while remaining a University community where all are welcome.

Core Commitments

Catholic intellectual and religious traditions guide us in the fulfillment of our mission. The mission and values of the Adrian Dominican Sisters serve as the inspiration for our core commitments.

Knowledge and Truth
Barry promotes and supports the intellectual life, emphasizing life-long learning, growth and development. The University pursues scholarly and critical analysis of fundamental questions of the human experience. In the pursuit of truth, the University advances development of solutions that promote the common good and a more humane and just society.

Inclusive Community
Barry is a global, inclusive community characterized by interdependence, dignity and equality, compassion and respect for self and others. Embracing a global world view, the University nurtures and values cultural, social and intellectual diversity, and welcomes faculty, staff, and students of all faith traditions.

Social Justice
Barry expects all members of our community to accept social responsibility to foster peace and nonviolence, to strive for equality, to recognize the sacredness of Earth, and to engage in meaningful efforts toward social change. The University promotes social justice through teaching, research and service.

Collaborative Service
Barry is committed to serving local and global communities through collaborative and mutually productive partnerships. The University accepts responsibility to engage with communities to pursue systemic, self-sustaining solutions to human, social, economic and environmental problems.

Approved by the President and the Executive Committee of the Administration on May 15, 2008; approved by the Board of Trustees on May 30, 2008; submitted to the General Council of the Adrian Dominican Sisters for final approval; Council approval received via letter from Sister Rosa Monique Pena, OP on June 20, 2008.